Faux Real Decorative Painting

Terrible- she did not take off the knobs or hinges just painted with them in - and some paint got on the knobs and hinges. She did not give me a chance to see what the job looked like before she waxed it - I believed she was to paint and apply a black glaze to the piece, nothing about a wax finish. She claims that it is not fixable because of the wax -- All she had to do was message a picture of the piece to me before she applied a wax finish and all of this could have been avoided. I would not give her any thing except a piece of junk that you really do not care about. And I paid her $400.00 for the job - the full price she quoted me -- she knew I was very upset but she took the all the money.

Karen was referred by a designer to paint our kitchen cabinets with a chalk paint and wax finish. She missed the first meeting, but when we finally met, I very much enjoyed her company. The project however, was a disaster and very stressful for all concerned.
Karen had a problem executing what the designer asked (deeper color base coat, with lighter color chalk paint on top, then rubbed back at edges to show base coat), so without showing us samples, she painted all of the doors with her Plan B which both we and the designer agreed did not look good with the other elements in the kitchen. She had the cabinet doors at her studio, so we did not see them until they were done. She was also supposed to paint the interiors of the cabinets. The original cabinets were forest green and we were repainting with beige. She only applied one coat of paint, which did not sufficiently cover the green, skipped the bottom of the uppers (which you could see when sitting at the table) and did not remove or tape the hinges so there was paint all over them. It was very sloppy, poor quality work for a professional painter.
At our request, she did come back (three times) to try to fix them, but it never got to a place that was acceptable to either the designer or us. The top cabinets were painted the wrong color and she applied a lighter color, then a darkening wax, which made them look dirty. The lower cabinets were easier to fix, however, she applied a gloss polyurethane when the cabinets were supposed to have a soft wax finish.  She said the polyurethane would wear better, and that was fine, but why gloss when the uppers had at best, a stain finish from the wax? She did recoat the lowers with a less glossy finish. 
We ended up painting the entire insides and underparts of the cabinets ourselves. At our last meeting, she did refund some money, but we agreed that trying to fix the uppers was too much of a project for us to do together considering how many times she'd been back. At that point, we were all very stressed withthis protracted situation. We were not able to find someone to fix a chalk paint finish, and when I took cabinet face samples to show one painter in Madison he said, "what happened here?!?"  So instead we are priming, and repainting them ourselves. They have to be primed because the brown wax bleeds through. Chalk paint and wax are not hard to work with, but they are different from latex and there is a learning curve. The project is relegated to weekends since we work and it is eating up what little free time we have. The kitchen was started in mid-July and it is now the end of September.  We hope to finish this weekend.  So far it looks great!
I'm sure that Karen is very talented- the designer had successfully worked with her before. As a person, she was very enjoyable to be with. Neither the designer or I understand what happened on this project, but I would say to demand samples, and hold all payment until the project is complete if you work with her.
She scheduled our project to take two weeks, so at $6,500, that works out to over $150,000 per year even if your subtract paint costs, vacation, etc.  I own a small business so understand costs, but sloppy work at that price level is unacceptable.  Maybe she's great at smaller jobs such as decorative walls, but for the money she charges, a professional job was expected.

Karen came and took a look. Worked on it the day she said she would. Did a fantastic job matching a hard to match kitchen cabinet.